You know the Obama campaign is seeing some baaaaad numbers over the last few days for Obama to come out and flip-flop on Wright: (via Michelle Malkin who liveblogged Obama’s speech)

“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle. The person that I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate. I believe they do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church. They certainly don’t portray mine. If he considers this political posturing, then he doesn’t know me very well. And I don’t know him well either.”

AIDS conspiracy: “Ridiculous proposition.”

Farrakhan support and analogy of Marines/terrorism: “They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. They should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing clearly and unequivocally here today.”

It’s antithetical to our campaign. It’s antithetical to what I’m about. It’s not what America stands for. Rev. Wright does not speak for me. He doesn’t speak for our campaign. I can’t prevent him from making these outrageous remarks…When I say I find these statements appalling, I mean it…Makes me angry and saddens me.”

Q&A.

1) Why the change in tone between now and yesterday? Obama: “I hadn’t seen it…He wasn’t just defending himself. He was presenting a worldview…What particularly angered me was the suggestion that my previous remarks were political posturing…”

Ok. Let’s be clear then: It wasn’t the fact that Wright has been spewing this same recycled crap for years that finally got Obama mad. It was that he finally realized it was hurting his campaign. And he was personally miffed by Wright’s insults against him.

2) What does this say about your judgment to superdelegates? “The person I saw was not the person that I’d come to know over 20 years…Shocked me, surprised me.”

2:11pm Eastern. “Now is the time to pull together.” Refers to dire economic situation. “That didn’t matter to Rev. Wright. What mattered to him was commanding center stage.”

“I don’t think he showed much concern for me…or for what we’re trying to do in this campaign.”

3) Question: Have you spoken with Wright? “No.”

BO: “This has obviously put strains on the relationship” between Obama and Trinity Church.

“I want people to understand who I am. In some ways, the things Wright said yesterday directly contradict my life, issues, service, what I’ve said in my books, in my convention speech, announcement for president, everything I’ve said on the campaign trail. What I tried to do in Philadelphia was provide a context and lift up some of the contradictions and complexities in America and try to make something constructive out of it. There wasn’t anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was was a bunch of rants that aren’t grounded in truth…It was a show of disprespect to me.”

6) Question: Do you agree with Wright that attacks on him are attacks on black church? How important is black liberation theology?

BO: “I’m not a theologian.”

But he’s the Obamessiah!

BO: “I went to church and listened to sermons. What I heard, there’s an emphasis on importance of social struggle, striving for equality, justice, fairness, a social gospel. Rather than fancy word like black liberation theology, he uses social gospel.” Didn’t view attacks as attacks on black church.

2:23pm Eastern. There have been unfair caricatures, but “yesterday, he caricatured himself.”

Obama says he tried contacting Wright before his Philadelphia speech. He was on a cruise. When he returned, they did speak. But Obama will not elaborate. “But what I can say is that I told him I found the snippets of past sermons inexcusable.”

“There’s been great damage” to relationship with Wright. “Won’t be the same.” Denies that Wright was his spiritual mentor. But he married Michelle and I, baptized my children, prayed with us, etc. etc.

So now that his campaign is getting hurt he throws his mentor under the bus as he did his grandma. What other way can you see it other then that? There is no way, no how, Obama did NOT know what Wright was like. His speech yesterday was no different then the sermons he spewed from his racist mouth for decades. Additionally, he says he is no theologian when the Church pushed that black liberation theology hard for years also. Puhlease.

And why now? Why not when the videos first saw the light of day? Or how about the 20 years he sat in the pews?

Mataharley made the case yesterday that Wrights behavior may be some backroom shananigans to let Obama save face:

I’m wondering if Wright is set to become a future tool for Obama to formally “eject” in the near future (as a public thing anyway). Who knows, it could already be arranged as campaign strategy/Act II. The back room workings of campaign handlers may be on to something, and this could be a big part of it. Obama “the victim” of Wright. Wright, “the nefarious” gets wealthy.

Has it occurred to anyone that these two (Obama and Wright) might have thought up this ploy as a justification for disowning Wright? Right now Obama is between a rock and a hard place but if Wright acts so outrageously Obma will have good reason to disown him. Never underestimate the political machinations of a democrat. Only at your peril. Wright is entirely too pleased with himself for me to not think this is a political gambit.

The “not once have I heard him” line sounds particularly implausible today.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

Obama has now disproven this. Also note how this statement echoes Wright’s insistence that he is not being criticized, but that the entire black church is under attack.

I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

This looked ridiculous at the time, but I wonder how Obama feels about this maddening comparison now.

~~~

In light of events in the past 72 hours, a lot of this looks ridiculous now.

Can we dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue? Yes we can, no irony intended. Those of us who were shocked and appalled by those first clips of Wright’s sermons were right, and Barack Obama, and all of those who accused us of judging Wright unfairly, were wrong.

Unlike “Spiritual Mentor” or somone he gets advice from on political matters.
Did he marry him to his wife, baptise his children, did McCain give thousands of dollars to his church. And Barry got the newsletters that had Hamas propaganda in it from his own church.

Scott

author

“Of course, that is not surprising considering the source.”
Explain or retract or be deleted

I deliberately didn’t put it in quotes. The fact of the matter is, a person’s pastor is their spiritual guide. He can deny it all he wants, but if a pastor, reverend, priest, rabbi, or imam isn’t a spiritual guide, then what are they, and why listen to em?

Aye Chihuahua

sky55110

hamas propaganda????? that sounds like propaganda

and excuuuuuuuuuuse me Aye for missing one word…..
but like you say words matter… so here is McCain calling this nut bag “a spiritual guide”
as he accepts his support… But you give McCain a pass????
sorry guilt by association plays in here… same game different candidate.

Why is the MSM giving McCain a free pass here??? is it because they are really the “corporate media” and they favor McCain???

Scott

author

Thanks Aye, I thought you were referring to my comments. LOL, gotta love the email voice. No harm or foul.

Look, all, when it comes to the Wright gig or any wacko affiliations to a candidate, what matters is the depth of the candidate’s reflection or parity with the wacko. Does McCain really buy into one guy’s dogma or another? I doubt the Maverick does. Does Obama? It seems he more of a panderer than anything else (but I can be called “bitter” in my disheartened views of Sen Obama). The whole thing is a distraction from what really matters: economy, war, and America’s future. Can McCain or Obama make the American economy boom with oil skyrocketing and looking to skyrocket more with numerous international crisis’ re oil developing? I’m skeptical-particularly given the power that the WH has over the US economy…or lack of power is a better description. Can Obama talk his way to pacifying Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Queda? Yeah, right. Can McCain scare them to peace and pacification? Doubt it, but at least the fiery little veteran can deter them for a while and make them think twice.

The world sits on the precipice of an incredibly explosive moment not very dissimilar to the pre-American Revolutionary war period or the time before WWI, WWII, or before the Cuban Missile Crisis. This time, I believe it’s a challenge between the leaders of civilization and the leaders of death cults preaching Islamic martydom. Can the leaders of civilization find it within themselves to identify, recognize, and address the threat, or will civilization’s leaders seek personal power and blow off anything else that doesn’t support their power positions?

Reverend Wright, or Jackson or Sharpton or any from the right too all just serve as distractions from bigger problems, harder problems, scarier problems that we’d rather not think about let alone plan to confront or even dare to confront.

Aye Chihuahua

I refreshed the thread and saw your response and said “Wait a second….how did I offend Scott”.

I typed out a brief response to you, posted it, and then realized that maybe you were not even talking to me. So I edited it.

Sky,

Again, I will remind you that words matter. You have a bad habit of misinterpreting, adding, and deleting words where they matter most. This most recent incident is a perfect example. “My spiritual adviser” carries an entirely different meaning and connotation than the actual quote.

Either by accident or by design that habit is misleading and/or deceitful.

As I have told you before, you will be challenged here when you engage in that sort of behavior. This is not an echo chamber.

I do find it rather interesting that you never insert/delete/misinterpret words in a way that would make the Obamessiah look bad.

MataHarley

While everyone battles it out over Wright/Obama vs various Christian pastors’/McCain support, I’m going to take the opinion of one who doesn’t give a flying fart about the associations themselves.

What I *do* care about is if those associations have permeated the candidate’s opinions and thought patterns enough to influence policy.

Obama and Michelle have aptly demonstrated, by their own words, that they believe this country has shafted them and others because of race. BHO himself forms policy based on correcting this perceived “shaft”.

And this, in a nutshell, is the victim mentality preached by Wright and ilk to such great success. Firmly embedded and embodied in the man who would be POTUS and his My “Fair Weather” First Lady. Did this come from Wright? Who knows, and who cares. What is important is that they share his victim mentality. And they have raised their children to believe the same.

Barack: “… your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams”

Barack: “In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds.”

Michelle: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

Michelle: “We should be at a point in time right now when every child in this nation, regardless of their race or their gender or their parents’ political party or their station in life or their region, they should be able to dream huge dreams for themselves.”

…….. I ask this. Just who is stopping anyone in this country from success, or from dreaming these “huge dreams” for themselves? The govt? The nation Michelle so blames, yet to the same owes her own privileged success?

As long as the nation’s leadership continues to address and treat we citizens as victims and places limitations on success (i.e. *too* rich)…

… as long as DNC candidates continue to promote Marxist notions of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” – i.e. the divide between rich and poor must be corrected…

… we will do nothing but destroy the spirit of achievement in America, and nuture more demanding victims as the next generation of leaders.